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Southern Quebec Survey Completed

Written by Karen S Bollinger

Monday, May 31, 2010

Carl Ferguson and I left Summit, Delaware, in N758F on May 6th and traveled to Burlington, Vermont, to stage for the southern Quebec Survey. The Survey began on May 10th and was completed on May 22nd. We had 2.5 weather days once the survey began. During the survey, we staged our flying out of Ottawa, Quebec City, North Bay, Val D’or, and Chibougamau. We flew N758F back to Delaware on May 24th.

We worked our way from south to north through survey strata 55, 52, 53, 56, and 68. Timing for the survey appeared to be late for the southern areas (i.e., trees had already leafed out); but appeared to be good for the northern areas where aspen were barely leafed out and birches just budding. Spring came very early to the southern part of our area, with locals at North Bay saying the lake was ice free in March. Locals estimated spring nesting phenology to be 2-3 weeks early this year.

Stratum 56 was predominantly farmland in the southwestern part of the survey area and along the river, and was forested with interspersed farmland in the eastern part. Power lines were dominant on the landscape in the southern part of our survey area, and mining activity was especially evident in the mid-eastern part of Stratum 56. Stratum 68 was almost entirely boreal forest and had relatively few power lines. Farmers were busy working fields in the farmland areas, and conditions appeared to be fair to dry. Stratum 52 was primarily boreal forest, while Strata 53 and 55 were mostly farmland interspersed with boreal forest.

Stratum 68 was very dry – as evidenced by the low water levels in many of the lakes and black spruce bog areas. Locals said it was the driest they had seen in 50 years, that lake levels were down 3-4 feet, and that they already had more fires this year than they saw all of last year.